United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace. And incidentally there is a bridge in Brooklyn for sale if you buy that. (Well one must at least agree with Winston Churchill that "Jaw-jaw is better than war- war.") The UN was founded in 1945 after World War II to replace the League of Nations, to stop wars between countries, and to provide a platform for dialog. It contains multiple subsidiary organizations to carry out its missions. Since of course its first mission was so successful. There are currently 193 member states, including every internationally recognized sovereign state in the world but the Vatican City (The smart ones). And the successor states of China. Taiwan got it's seat back. From its offices around the world, the UN and its specialized agencies decide on substantive and administrative issues in regular meetings held throughout the year. The organization has six principal organs: the General Assembly (the main deliberative assembly); the Security Council (for deciding certain resolutions for peace and security); the Economic and Social Council (for assisting in promoting international economic and social cooperation and development); the Secretariat (for providing studies, information, and facilities needed by the UN); the International Court of Justice (the primary judicial organ); and the United Nations Trusteeship Council (which is currently inactive and therefore the most effective). Other prominent UN System agencies include the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Food Program (WFP) and United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). The UN's most visible public figure is the Secretary-General, currently Ban Ki-moon of Korea, who attained the post in 2007. The organization is financed from assessed and voluntary contributions from its member states, and has six official languages: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish. Current Events Local The carcass of China has been lying about the UN like a dead elephant, a stinking dead elephant. People speak of China as if it just stepped out of the room for the moment. At first none of the former Chinese captive nations or provinces were accepted into the UN, except for Taiwan. As of mid 2014 Tibet, Huan, and Sichuan State have managed to wrench seats at the table with France as the primary enabler. Shanghai City State is riding that coattail and Beijing (The Empire of China) is insisting it still has a seat. Non-Humans The question of native species that are not Human is also causing a lot of distress. Ane Ane, the most obvious, neither hold nor claim any national identity save their own species, and that tied to no piece of land. They are not shrieking at Kenya to separate their "traditional homelands" or anything of the sort. There are bodies making that complaint, but only to push their own agenda (PLO we are looking at you). A people that neither have nor seek a land is alien to the staid heads of the UN. The only UN action about the Ane has been the occasional motion to declare the Ane a world resource. This does not endear the UN to the Ane. What the Ane are claiming is to be an interstellar body holding a number of star systems and worlds, the Ane Confederation, with a population greater than the Humans of Earth. The Ane on Earth are part of this. That is so outside the UN charter. Cetaceans If the Ane have the UN scratching their heads the Cetaceans have them totally befuddled. The idea of even a racial identity is alien to them. However, they are not without concerns and even demands. Over fishing by Humans and hunting them are things they don't like and with access to a voice they are voicing. However the idea that they might be a nation is...strange at the least. The Pod is their largest social body, and they wander the seas at will. Flags and anthems, people with funny hats whose opinion matters more? Come again? There are voices in the UN that want the Cetaceans to get want they want. Whaling is finally over, by action other than the UN. Fishing is being (ineffectively) addressed. At the least there is a voice to counter the tired refrain that the wildlife is destroying the environment. Elephants Elephants are however both closer to the norm, and much further away. The Elephants through interpreters have been vocal and demanding. The nations of south and southeast Asia are facing some heavy dues for the willful enslavement of the Elephants. African nations for their wholesale slaughter of them is facing some dues as well. Elephants want land. they want land opened for them to move and land open for them to live. They don't seek monetary damages, they want their ranges and freedom restored to them. The Ane are the main advocates here, for once siding with the Animal Rights Freaks. Apes The Great Apes are causing a great deal of debate. Close enough to Human, but so far from same. Most of the apes don't care as long as they are not molested. They are for the most part a semi-people with simple needs. The Ane will not name them as fully sentient, rating them as 3 or 4 on the sentient scale. (Fully sentient being a 5) Ape researchers being honest about it cannot claim any better. Animal rights activists see the Apes as a wedge species. Get full rights for them, and you can carry it down the line. The people that can talk freely to them will not cooperate with this. It leaves then tearing out their hair; Herbivores even, vegans! And they don't agree! What a world! The Half World This one is scary. It is coming, we think. No one including the experts has any idea how this is going to break down. Nations could be substantially physically changed. New/old species will appear. Fauns are already known. Sasquatch have been contacted as have two distinct bodies of Elves and a number of Humans. There are those hot to get ready and those hotly ignoring the whole matter from the sheer unknowablity of the thing. It is questionable if either approach is useful. Alien Contacts So far Earth has had friendly contact with Vulcan, the Ane Confederation, Teller, Kentari, and the Vicarrian Empire among others. There are still other worlds that Earth is aware of but there is no official contact as of yet. There has been a hostile encounter with Vegaris (Orions) that has become a refugee issue as the planet was consumed in a civil was. This contact has broadened with ADF ships pulling people out. The conflict looks to have died down. There has been a hostile encounter with Qzin, but not any direct contact with their world. The UN has increasingly been pushed off the main world stage since First Contact with other species. The moneys such do-nothings spent on doing nothing are increasingly replaced with attention to things like the Warp Drive Project that has done more to end world hunger and advance education without spending a cent on same than anything else period. The Corp of Discovery is moving ahead solely on the backing of the backers and without UN sanction, or seeking UN sanction. The Sentient Rights Agreement seems to be the binding criteria. The United States has twice brought up universal acceptance of the Sentient Rights Agreement. The General Assembly has killed it twice. The main use the UN has seen since the contact is to increasingly call for the routing of all contact's through the UN. The UN approved Outer Space Treaty is considered dead in place as the news that armed and hostile aliens do exist. Commerce is going ahead without permission from anyone. Both the Moon and Mars have colonies that are there to make money. Outsiders The matter of Outsiders is finally being addressed. The presence is getting hard to ignore. The United States has embassies from the Eyrian Empire, the Coranth Empire the world of Tuen (Tanuki) and Equestria (Freaking pastel ponies!!). There is also contact with the World of Magnus, apparently a lower magic location in the Greyhawke universe. HIH Jerlane, the Eyrian Ambassador to the United States, has been approached by the UN. They were politely declined. He stated that he doesn't believe that his Nation has a place in this body being from another world. The Eyrian Empire approves of the goals of the United Nations, but will not join. This was repeated on Tesral's visit to the UN. Not our world. Thank you. Not our place. The Lost Persons Treaty is attracting a larger body of international and interdimensional signers. It is currently the only document binding any Outsider and the people of Earth. The UN has finally acknowledged the treaty and blandly approves. The Future For the UN? Bleak unless the body seriously reforms itself, realizes the world and the very fabric of the universe is changing, and deals with that. The nations rising from the carcass of China are one of those issues. Taiwan has demanded its seat back (and at least gotten it), Tibet and Manchuria want a seat at the table. Hong Kong, Huan, Shanghai, Szechuan, and others are knocking at the gate. The Peoples' Republic is dead, deal. So far there has been nothing but debate and inaction. These nations are looking to the Sentient Rights Agreement as a framework for discussion. Adherence to the agreement forbids aggressive war. That is a good start. The second are the non-Humans among them. One wonders why anyone is trying to collectivize the Ane as they are not even members of the body. The other species are even more outside the box the UN is built in. The UN reflects a world that existed post WWII. Two of the linchpins of that world are gone, the Soviet Union and Maoist China. The UN itself is slow to change. Right here, right now in the world that is it is not serving them well. The Ane Confederation keeps repeating "Worlds, not Nations". The UN would like to be the organization that pulls this off on Earth. Right now it is questionable whether the world or the UN is ready to do that. The Charter Commission Originally a suggestion by the French that indeed the old charter reflects a world that no longer exists the commission has been working since mid 2016 with the kind of infighting you would expect. Everyone is jumping in to enshrine their own sacred cows and to gore everyone else's. One attempt to highjack the whole process by Beijing strongman Chow Young was derailed, and he was uninvited. Serious suggestions have been made, but no one expects the process to honestly take less than two years. If it produces a usable document at all. Category:Politics Category:Groups Category:Earth Gazetteer